Kickstarter Tops $1 Billion in Pledges, Games Rake in Most Dough

And to think, when Tim Schafer was able to crowdfund $3.3 million for Double Fine Adventure (aka Broken Age) in 2012, many believed it was a one-time Kickstarter success story.

Two years later, $3.3 million is just a drop in the bucket and crowdfunding has become a viable option for game makers seeking to escape the traditional publisher model.

Kickstarter announced today that, since its launch in 2009, it has received more than $1 billion in pledges and the category with the most total dollars contributed is Games — to the tune of $215.77 million.

It’s an impressive figure, but some additional stats shared by Kickstarter indicate that successfully crowdfunding a game project is anything but a sure thing. Of the 13 different categories Kickstarter uses for its projects, Games has the fourth lowest success rate at just 35%.

Conversely, when it comes to raising big bucks, Games reigns supreme. Thirty different Games projects have raised more than $1 million. The next closest category is Technology, with just 12 projects topping $1 million.

And you can’t talk games and crowdfunding without mentioning Star Citizen. Chris Roberts’ in-development space sim has now raised more than $39 million. Just over $2 million of that was generated via Kickstarter while the ramining $37 million was chipped via Star Citizen’s own crowdfunding site.

Put today’s Kickstarter stats alongside Star Citizen, and you see how staggering Star Citizen’s success is: 8,755 Games projects on Kickstarter generated $215 million; Star Citizen all by its lonesome is over $37 million and counting.

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